Mist Part 5 (Patreon)

Genie smiled as she looked over the group. “Did you have fun completely derailing the plot?”

Sin smirked. “Yep!”

“You realize that giving them a copy of the Vampire Diaries and the Originals was sort of twisted, right?” Genie asked.

Hermione said, “It has a few things they should fix and knowing about certain characters and possibilities might keep Klaus from going completely nuts.”

“Either way, I’m not planning on coming back for a while so I’m not sure it matters,” Mist admitted.

Dawn asked, “How many points did he get?”

“Considering he managed to wipe out all of the vampires on the planet, it should be a lot,” Buffy pointed out.

Genie snickered. “Feeling a little jealous?”

“Just a bit.”

“He managed to get the max, 3500 points.”

“Cool, that means I can pick up a couple of things. If I pick up tribald would I have to have the memories?”

Genie shook her head. “Nope, I’m not backtracking 2,000 years of history.”

“In that case, let’s see the jump document.”

Genie tossed the jump document on the screen. “Sure.”

Dennis asked, “Is there a reason that you’re even bothering considering how much stronger you already are than anything from that world?”

“With the unification ritual, I can upgrade werewolves so they can control their change. I might be able to upgrade various magic talents and such things.”

“Doesn’t that make you a vampire?” Buffy asked.

“Nah, I’d have some links to them but I wouldn’t actually be one nor would I have the stupid humanity switch or any of the really stupid issues vampires have in that world.” Mist worked on picking out the perks and items that he wanted.

Willow asked, “Where are we going next?”

“Let’s buy a whorehouse.” Sin snickered at the looks on people’s faces.

Tara shook her head. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“It can, Black Dynamite has a whorehouse that is supposed to make decent money.”

“You just helped loot several banks, art galleries and everything else under the sun, I don’t think you need money, for decades if ever.”

Sin pouted. “Maybe I just want see naked girls?”

Cordelia snorted. “Mist already owns a strip club, try again.”

“If I’m paying them for sex, that’s less sex I need from the group.”

“I thought you were coming up with reasons why we should talk Mist into buying it, not reasons why we should talk him out of it?” Dennis asked with amusement then winced as Vista punched him in the shoulder. “Hey.”

Vista stuck her tongue out at Dennis.

Dawn snickered. “He has a point.”

Lily spoke up, “We’re not getting or running a whorehouse, some of the jumps are bound to be really nasty and I’d rather not have to continually protect the girls, the club is bad enough. If for some reason we decide that Sin needs a project, she can always make a whorehouse in the basement of the club for a jump.”

Sin smiled at Lily. “Okay, I guess that works.”

“I have a feeling I just got played,” Lily admitted.

Laura laughed. “She’s sneaky like that.”

Mist looked over his choices for the Vampire Diaries.

Werewolf Form: [Free]

Evolved Werewolf [600]

Unified Powers [600]

Siphoning [300]

Original Hybrid [600]

Tribrid: [800]

Transformation control amulet [200]

Ascendant: [400] 

“That should do it.” Mist was glad when Genie quickly swapped the jump for the Black Dynamite jump as it meant that no one was paying attention to the fact that he could technically make vampires or hybrids. He wasn’t planning on creating any but it was an option. He looked at the various options for the Black Dynamite jump. “Okay, does anyone mind not getting perks until the end? The drawbacks are horrible. The only one that looks remotely interesting is probably a death trap.”

Leet asked, “How are any of the flaws a death trap?”

“The plenty of cats have that name flaw gives me a bunch of illegit children with powers, most of whom want to see me destroyed for abandoning them.”

“Yeah, that would be bad,” Leet admitted.

Mist turned to look at Genie.”If I’m a drop in, how does that flaw work?”

“You remember Anakin Skywalker’s mother, right? So yeah, imagine their surprise when they learn who the father is.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t need to give you a reason to get creative with my offspring. Actually, if I took the flaw, could I go back in time and rescue them?”

Genie shook her head. “Not as a drop in, I’d basically be creating them as I needed entertainment.”

Mist looked down his nose at Genie. “In that case, I think I’ll pass.”

“Probably for the best,” Genie admitted with amusement.

He might have went for the flaw in a different jump where the mothers might contribute interesting powers or something but the backgrounds for the Black Dynamite jump sucked, a PTSD Vietnam Vet, a corrupt CIA operative and a really stupid Kung Fu guy with crappy perks. “In that case, let’s try this.”

Background: Drop In:

Can you dig it? [Free] Gift for getting ideas across

Shake the Scene You Turkeys: [50] People won’t get upset for telling them to leave.

Smack Wiped off the Streets [300] Problems stay fixed after you fix them.

Keeping the Girls up in Kung Fu [100] Training people in martial arts takes very little time. 

Fiendish Dr. You [300] Target specific demographics with serums.

Companions: [200] 8 people get 400 points.

Items:

Wardrobe [50]

Militant Beret [Free] Top Hat

Abby/Selena

Can you dig it? [Free]

Militant Beret [Free]

Genie looked at Mist’s choices. “Not bad, that gives 8 people 400 points to play around with.”

Mist turned and looked at Genie. “I figure I can get the dojo and possibly the car after we leave depending on how many points I get.”

Willow asked, “Any ideas for what the eight people should take?”

“I was thinking Smack Wiped off the Streets and Keeping the Girls up in Kung Fu.”

Faith grinnned. “I wouldn’t mind my problems staying fixed after I fixed them.”

Harry piped up, “Me either.”

Albus smiled as he thought of how much easier dealing with the courts would have been with that ability. “That would certainly help.”

Uber coughed. “Considering the sheer number of martial arts I can pull out of my ass thanks to my power, I should probably be one of the eight.”

“I wouldn’t mind the ability to fix problems permanently,” Lily said after no one else spoke up.

Umy said, “I should probably grab the ability as well considering my power lets me create elaborate plans.”

“Can I have one of the spots?” Willow asked.

Mist shrugged. “Sure.”

Aisha spoke up, “I want to deal with the drug problem.”

Mist looked at Aisha. “Try not to go overboard.”

“Define overboard?” Aisha asked innocently.

“Rivers of blood in the streets and completely banning useful drugs.”

“I’m not going to go after medicine or alcohol or even weed but the rest of the crap is fare game, right?”

“No complaints here,” Mist replied as he filled in the eight names and their abilities.

Faith, Harry, Albus, Uber, Lily, Umy, Willow, Aisha:

Can You Dig It? [Free]

Smack Wiped off the Street: [300]

Keeping the Girls up in Kung Fu [100]

Item:

Military Beret: [Free]

Genie asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to pick up a wardrobe or something?”

Mist looked down his nose at Genie. “We already have a wardrobe that is going in the warehouse, it’s infinite, we don’t need a bunch of them.”

Aisha snickered. “I’m going to be raiding your wardrobe a lot.”

“Same,” Tara admitted.

“I could stand to pick up a couple of muggle suits,” Albus agreed.

Cordelia piped up, “Just as long as they aren’t lime green or orange.”

“Dark purple?” Albus asked with carefully concealed amusement.

“Better but we’ll work on it.” Cordelia had a sinking feeling she was going to start hitting people with color changing charms before the end of the year.

“In that case, best of luck and try not to go too insane.” Genie snapped her fingers and sent people on their way.

0o0o0

Mist twitched slightly as he appeared in the office in his club with Faith, Harry, Albus, Uber, Lily, Umy, Willow, Aisha, Selena and Abby. He looked down at the stage and winced when he saw two vaguely attractive black girls on stage with really bad hairstyles and garish clothes. “Right, local ‘talent’.”

Aisha snorted as she looked at the girls dancing. “What the hell? Normally the girls are at least cute.”

“I’m guessing the screwed up parody nature of the jump infected stuff,” Mist replied in annoyance.

Faith said, “I’m with Aisha on this one, maybe we should treat this jump as an excuse to go on a trip.”

Mist asked, “Any ideas?”

Willow piped up, “We have a spaceship that we haven’t really worked on that much, this might be a decent opportunity to put some work into making sure it works in various worlds.”

Uber looked away from the girls on the poles. “I’m sure Leet would be up for helping with the ship. I wouldn’t object to introducing Nintendos a decade and change early.”

Mist smiled at Willow. “Doing a little exploring around the solar system sounds fun. I don’t have any objection to starting a couple of computer game businesses either. If I start the company, all of my employees will quickly become experts in their fields which means that we can have expert programmers within a couple of weeks as well as expert computer engineers in a couple of weeks.”

Uber winced as Mist turned and looked at him. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks?”

“Because you’re our skill monkey and you’re the one that wanted to create a computer industry. I’m planning on coming up with some growth formulas and marketing them as herbal remedies.”

Lily shook her head. “In other words you’re going to increase the nation’s average breast size aren’t you?”

“It’s entirely possible though I’m planning on putting out serums that decrease the size of breasts as well as selling serums for increasing the size of other things. Want larger feet, go for it, want smaller feet, sure no problem. Want to increase the size of your breasts, drink a vial, want them smaller, drink a different vial. With enough endless enchants, I shouldn’t have a problem stocking multiple stores around the country. Not to mention I can sell youth potions to celebrities to start the entire process off.”

Albus spoke up, “You should probably consider selling soda laced with cure disease potions.”

Mist turned to look at Albus. “That’s actually a decent suggestion.”

“I’m old, not senile. I don’t have any objections to any of that as long as there are warning labels.”

Umy said, “I’ll work up a plan for nationwide saturation and look into finding a couple of soda companies we can buy out to speed up the process.”

Harry said, “I’m sure the thinning potions from the Sims would sell quite well.”

Aisha rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be fun.”

Mist opened a portal to his warehouse against the wall. “In that case, let’s get cooking.” He grinned as he walked into the warehouse to collect the stuff he needed to make some growth serums.

Lily shook her head as she followed Mist to check out his new wardrobe. She had a feeling that the next couple of months would be interesting, followed by quite a few camping trips which was fine by her.

Harry was looking forward to working on the ship again or at least doing some exploring or flying around the solar system.

0o0o0

Hermione frowned slightly as she looked at the perfect adamantium sword blade that Mist had just finished crafting. “I’m still not sure how you can turn liquid adamantium into a blade using your crafting ability and still get the perks from using the Anvil of Fury.”

“I’m assuming magic,” Mist replied with amusement as he looked over the completed sword blade. It was longer than a short sword but nowhere near the size of a great sword.

Hermione glanced away from the blade and looked around the mobile workshop in the wagon. “I’m just surprised that you aren’t racing around in a jumper with the other boys.”

“I wanted to make sure Leet worked out all of the glitches in the drive system before I went wandering around in a ship that might explode.”

“Do you think that’s likely?” Hermione asked warily.

“No but this world has people running around with the next best thing to plot armor. Flying around in space ships, isn’t exactly genre friendly. I’d rather not find out that the universe thinks it’s amusing to blow the ship up for reasons.”

“Now you’re just being paranoid,” Hermione replied.

“This is the first time my club has ever had strippers that weren’t hot as hell. Ugly hairstyles, bad clothes and a couple have fat lips that could suck start a harley, I’d rather not take chances if I don’t have to,” Mist grumbled.

Hermione smiled with amusement. “What are you going to use for the hilt?”

“Crystal, monster bone or some type of magical wood. It just depends on what I can find that gives a decent grip.”

“I know we still have a few months left but have you given any thought to where we’re going next?”

Mist set his blade on his anvil. “I’m not sure, Leet and Uber have been hinting that they want to go to a game jump when they aren’t flying around in a puddle jumper having fun. I sort of want to get back and finish things with Fantastic Beasts now that society will stay fixed once I fix something.”

Hermione nodded. “There are a lot of things to fix.” 

“Make a list. I’m planning on creating dozens of companies to get the ball rolling before we leave for the Harry Potter jump.”

“It’s still a bit strange to know that we’re characters in books in your original world,” Hermione admitted.

Mist flashed her a smile then started working on creating a crystal hilt with his crystal creation power. “You think and breathe which means that you’re real enough.”

“Thanks.” Hermione watched as Mist assembled the sword hilt using metal pins to hold it in place. “Once you finish the sword, then what?”

“I don’t know, I’ll probably fly my car out into the ocean and change it back into a city ship so that Leet can look things over before we launch the ship into space. Anything is better than sticking around the club and watching ugly strippers,” Mist replied with annoyance.

“They’re not ugly, it’s the hair and the clothes,” Hermione pointed out. 

“Fine, most of them aren’t that bad, just not up to the club’s usual standard,” Mist complained.

Hermione smiled slightly at the look of annoyance on his face. “It’s just Genie’s way of getting you to do other things.”

“Probably. Not sure I really needed it but at least it got me motivated to work on the various enhancement serums.”

“I’m still not entirely comfortable with handing out serums that modify people but I guess working out the quirks in a weird jump is better than introducing the stuff to a jump we care about.” Hermione frowned slightly. “Did that sound callous?”

“Maybe a little but seriously one of the perks would have given whoever took it a license to kill anyone they wanted, never mind the target. That seems more than a little stupid so it’s pretty hard to respect the world. I’ll be happy once we’re done with this jump.” Mist looked over his completed sword then placed it in his inventory. “Let’s park the wagon in the warehouse so we can head out to sea and change it back to a city ship so Leet can check to see if we can get it to fly or at least check the shields and grav systems.”

Hermione said, “We’re going to have to do that for every jump, aren’t we?”

“Sadly, yeah. Not every world works the same way once you get past Earth normal physics. I might have a way to fix it eventually but right now there isn’t much I can do about it.”

“At least the jumps are fun.”

“For the most part, yeah. If nothing else the company is excellent.” Mist smiled as he left the wagon and glanced around the camping site where they’d parked on their trip.

“Finally finished crafting your epic blade of doom?” Sin asked cheekily as Hermione followed Mist out of the blacksmith wagon.

Mist pulled the blade out of his inventory to show her. “I still need to put everything together and transfer over some magical abilities but I have the basic form down.”

“Sweet.” Sin walked over to get a closer look at the blade. “Nice, you should keep a basic version that you can copy and hand out to allies that doesn’t have all of the rather scary extras you’re bound to put on the blade.”

“That’s not a bad idea, I’d hate for someone to pick up the blade and cast Ultima 255 times.”

Sin’s eyes widened. “Wait! Please tell me that you didn’t actually enchant the sword to cast Ultima.”

Mist snickered. “Of course not, I’d have to pay 255 times the full mana cost for that at once, I can’t do that yet.”

“It’s the yet that worries me.”

“This from one of the girls that was jumping between worlds and siphoning immortals until we jumped.” Mist put the black back in his inventory.

“It was a great way to increase our mana pools, you’re just jealous.” Sin stuck her tongue out at Mist.

“I’ll catch up eventually.” Mist opened a portal to his warehouse then pulled the wagon into the warehouse with his telekinesis. He closed the portal once the wagon was all the way through. “We should probably round the stragglers up and then head out.”

Sin glanced over at her small fire. “Can we wait until we roast the marshmallows?  

“Of course, we’ve got plenty of time,” Mist admitted as he walked over and sat down on one of the folding chairs near the campfire.

Hermione smiled as she watched Sin bounce over to the bag of supplies which included the marshmallows. “You have to be one of the happiest demons I’ve ever ran into.”

Sin giggled as she stuck a marshmallow on the end of her stick. “Why shouldn’t I be happy? I have a great master and a lot of girls to play with and seduce.”

Hermione shook her head. “I think you might be the only person that has actually slept with everyone in the group.”

Sin frowned slightly. “If you mean the current group, yeah, if you mean total, no.”

“Oh?”

“Eh, Ron wasn’t worth sleeping with because yuck,” Sin complained.

Hermione replied as she walked over and claimed a folding chair, “I’m still not sure what happened with him.”

“Dropped on his head?” Mist asked sarcastically. “Sorry. I’m still a little annoyed that he couldn’t get a handle on his jealousy but as least we figured that out before we wasted too many abilities on him.”

“There is that,” Sin agreed as she put the marshmallow over the fire. 

Mist smirked as he used telekinesis to float a marshmallow out of the bag and over the flames.

“I’m fairly sure that’s cheating boss.”

“Bullshit, you’re just jealous that you didn’t think of it.”

Hermione smiled as she pulled a book out of her inventory and started reading as Sin and Mist discussed plans for upgrading the city ship.

0o0o0

Genie snickered as the group reappeared. “Welcome back, did you have fun?”

Mist shrugged. “Mostly, some of the initial girls weren’t all that attractive but things improved once Cordelia had a ‘chat’ with them about their style of dress.”

Cordelia snorted. “The clothes were horrible.”

“I still think you should have let me check some of the people for brain damage, there has to be a medical reason their sense of style was that bad,” Riley complained as she glanced at Albus.

Genie snickered. “Probably but it was part of the world so I went with it. Either way, you’re done with the nightmare and you have 1900 points to spend on fun stuff like whorehouses.”

Sin quickly asked, “If he bought a whorehouse does he have to take it into a jump?”

“Of course not, same thing with the dojo and the orphanage,” Genie replied.

Mist glanced over at Lily then back at Sin. “You’re just trying to get me in trouble.”

James laughed. 

Lily glared at James then looked at Mist. “I’m not going to object if you want to buy Sin a whorehouse to keep her busy as long as you don’t bring it into any world like the last one and you make a couple of dozen anti disease and regeneration bracelets for the girls.”

“That I can do,” Mist admitted as he walked over to spend his points.

Hermione rolled her eyes as Sin jumped up in the air and hollered. “Where are we going next?”

“I wouldn’t mind going to Master of Magic so that we can pick up some more magical races to add in our Fantastic Beasts jump.”

Albus smiled slightly as he shook his head. “The ministry is going to be pulling their hair out over this.”

“Probably but that is half the fun. If we introduce them as strange people from a jungle tribe, I doubt anyone will really question it.”

Vista spoke up, “How long is the jump?”

Mist shrugged. “As long as we want it to take, twenty minutes or years. Basically if we want to end the jump, all we have to do is defeat the rival wizards.”

Ranma said, “Which means we open up doors and skip their defenses.”

“Pretty much yeah.”

Genie shrugged. “That’s one way to do it. If nothing else, there are some interesting spells to acquire.”

“How sure are you that you can win?” Aisha asked.

“Considering I can spawn a bunch of magic using minions, I think we’ll be fine.” Mist finished selecting things then looked over his list.

Nunchucks: [100] Imported Adamantium Anvil of Fury sword

Nunchucks: [100] Imported BFG9000

Car [150] Chevrolet Bel Air Coupe 1957 Imported time jumper

Orphanage: [150]

Brothel: [200]

Dojo: [300]

Genie blinked. “Wait, you’re importing your BFG9000 as a melee weapon?”

“It gives it a stun setting and makes it a melee weapon in case I find any neat import options for melee weapons in future jumps.”

“That’s a bit twisted but I guess it works. That leaves you with 900 points, do you want to buy anything else from here?”

“Not right now,” Mist replied with amusement.

“You realize that just importing the time jumper won’t make it work in other settings, right?”

“Of course. Mostly I just wanted an extra car and importing the time jumper to make it more useful just made sense.”

Vista asked, “Why a 57 Chevrolet?”

“Because it looks nice which is better than I can say about most cars from the 70’s.” Mist turned to look at Genie. ”Can you toss up the Master of Magic Jump, please?”

Genie snickered as she swapped the jumps on the wall. “Because you asked so nicely, sure.” 

Mist looked the jump over as the girls chatted with Genie and each other. He wasn’t planning on sticking around longer than necessary which meant that picking up the various links to magic would be a waste of points when he should be able to find entire libraries in the other wizard towers. “Genie, I have a question, can I fake the elemental links with FF6 magic infusion?”

Genie shrugged. “Probably not without more work than it’s worth. The various magic items and artifacts are arcane and just use the other types of magic. You’d have to track down a node of each type and… you know, on second thought would you believe me if I just said no?”

“Not now.” Mist frowned slightly as he considered how many nodes he’d have to eat to get enough magic of the right type in order to cast the various spells. “In other words, it might require some work to reverse engineer the spells from this world without taking the elemental links?”

“Pretty much, in the game, you could find books and such things, it doesn’t quite work like that in the jump.”

“We can still raid monster lairs for artifacts and spells, right?” Mist asked hopefully.

“Sure, it’s just casting the various spells that will be problematic without the proper links.”

“In that case, I think I can make this work,” Mist replied as he started working on selecting the perks he wanted.

Laura asked, “How bad are the companion imports?”

Genie spoke up, “The paladin champion isn’t a bad option but honestly, problem is they aren’t worth 100 cp a piece which means that he’d probably import you using the 50 cp option which means that he’d have to summon you and you wouldn’t have your out of jump powers during the jump. Even then, there aren’t that many heroes worth bothering with.”

“In other words, it’s a pain in the ass?” Laura asked with amusement.

“Pretty much,” Genie admitted.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me select the random traits for the Mystic X champion?”

Genie snorted. “No, it says random for a reason. Good try though.”

“Rats, if we make people heroes and gave away their powers?” Mist asked curious what Genie’s response would be but figuring it was likely to be a resounding no.

“Nope, the powers would vanish, nice try though.”

“In that case, to hell with it. We’ll figure out other methods for boosting people.” Mist looked over his list of perks. “What do you think?”

Drop In:

Weight of the Ages: 0

Place Of Power: 0

Channeler: [200] Master at maintaining spells, cost to maintain spells is halved and enchantments with a set duration lasts twice as long.

Companion:

Heroes? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Heroes! 0

Runic Aid: [Free] You don't need to know a spell to enchant things if you have someone on hand that knows the spell.

Artificer: [100] Cuts the cost and time to enchant things by half.

Alchemy: [100] Convert gold to mana and mana to gold perfectly.

Magic Forged Arms: [100] You can teach smiths to create low­ grade magic weapons and armor.

I am the fortress: [200] You don't have to stay near your place of power to get the benefits.

Runemaster: [300] This halves the time it takes to learn arcane spells, as well as the energy costs of casting and maintaining them. In future jumps, this boost applies to magics that are not ​restricted to a particular group or alignment (not aligned to life, death, the mind, or any element or theme).

Sage Master: [600] You are a master of hidden secrets. You read rapidly and will learn all new spells nearly twice as quickly. This also improves your memory and retention to just beyond the peak of human ability if you do not already have such an ability, and gives a slight boost to intelligence, as well as making you exceptional at deciphering hidden codes and languages.

Sorcery Link: [200] 

Spell: Phantom Warriors

Drawbacks:

Am I Late? [+300]

How Do You Work This Thing? [+100]

Uh, Where is the On Button? [+200]

Genie looked over Mist’s selections. “Sorcery 1? Wait, you’re taking am I late?”

“I might want the rest depending on how many points I end up with and with am I late, there will be examples of the higher end monsters running around for us to copy or get blood samples from.” Mist was planning on bribing some of the warriors out of their resistances to poison, petrification effects and death magic. He wasn’t sure what he’d have to bribe them with but it should be possible.

Riley grinned. “This is going to be awesome.”

Genie admitted, “That makes sense. Any other questions before I drop you in?”

Selena asked, “Do Abby and I count as wizards?”

Genie blinked as she considered Selena’s question. “Huh, technically I guess you would count as wizards or at least apprentices.” She gestured and stuck the free perks up on the screen..

Selena/Abby

Drop In:

Weight of the Ages: 0

Place Of Power: 0

Runic Aid: [Free] 

Abby snickered. “Place of power is nothing to sneeze at considering it drastically increases the range for certain spells.”

“On that note, I’m assuming you don’t want your various buildings imported this jump?” Genie asked.

“Nah, I’d rather not have to deal with them right now.” Mist didn’t want to have to take care of any of his buildings and didn’t want the distraction.

“In that case, try not to die, I’ll see you when the other wizards are dead or concede.” Genie snapped her fingers and sent Mist and crew to one of the Masters of Magic worlds.

0o0o0

Mist looked around the field they found themselves in. “First order of business is capturing a city.”

Ranma asked, “Any preference?”

“Dwarves or Dark elves would be my choice. We might be able to make a deal with the dwarves and I want to take over a neutral dark elf city or steal it from an evil wizard if we can’t find a neutral wizard.”

Hermione asked, “How evil are the dark elves here?”

“About what you’d expect from sociopathic magic using elves.”

“In other words, we’d be doing the world a favor if we took over a couple of dark elf towns?” Dawn asked.

“Pretty much,” Mist admitted.

Lily looked at Selena. “Selena, let’s go see if we can recruit some dwarves.”

Selena grinned. “Sure.”

Harry looked at Abby. “Let’s see who we can recruit while they’re working on that.”

Victoria asked, “What about us?”

Mist glanced around. “You might as well fly around and take pictures so that we can create some type of map.”

“The rest of us should probably find somewhere to make camp,” Beth pointed out.

Taylor grinned. “Can someone give me a lift to one of the insect cities?”

Dennis paled as he turned and stared at Taylor. “Oh shit.”

Lily laughed. “Sure, I’ll drop you, Xander and Buffy off near some insects and we’ll see if you can control them.”

“That works.” Buffy would rather look for some undead to destroy but figured there would be plenty later.

Piper said, “I think I’ll see if I can find some large wild animals to use to take over a town if someone wants to come help?”

Uber spoke up, “Sure.”

Albus smiled at Piper. “I’ll help.”

“In that case, let’s do this.” Ranma grinned as he opened a portal to a rather small neutral dark elf village in an out of the way location that none of the wizards had bothered with.

Amy sighed as the group split up and left through doors. ‘Sometimes it feels like I’m the only sane one left.’

Amelia grinned at Amy and Riley. “At least we’ll get plenty of genetic samples.”

Umy grinned as she pulled her staff of apocalypse out of her inventory followed Ranma. 

0o0o0

Mist might have felt more guilty about taking over various towns and cities except that most of the wizards were evil sociopaths that liked chaos and death magic or in the case of the sole wizard on Myrran, Death and Sorcery. On the upside, Lily had managed to save a dwarven town from an army of zombies which had caused the mayor to throw in with their growing alliance. Interestingly and horrifyingly enough Taylor could actually control the insect people which was more than a little horrifying all things considered. Still that meant that taking over one of their cities was as easy as her walking in and claiming it.

Ranma had slightly more trouble with the dark elf city but that just meant he got a decent workout for once. Piper’s group were able to take over a beastman jump by walking in with a ‘small’ army of beasts which caused them to dedicate themselves to Piper and her wizard because if Piper could do that, her wizard could ‘obviously’ crush them.

0o0o0

Noelle frowned slightly as she spotted the large pig faced demon lord guarding the wizard tower that Mist wanted cleared out because it connected the two worlds and was close to the previously ‘neutral’ dark elf town they’d taken over. ‘This would be so much easier if they weren’t immune to illusion.’ She pulled out the copy of Mist’s stopwatch that he’d let her borrow and pressed the button. She smiled as everything other than her froze. She jogged over to the winged demon lord that was sort of floating in mid air then slipped behind it and grabbed its right wing with her free hand. She pushed the button to let time move, activated her power and copied the demon lord. She ripped down on the wing tearing tendons, muscle and flesh as she shouted, “Kill it!” She pushed the button on the stopwatch as the demon lord started to turn to attack her.

She took a step back then took a few seconds to examine the demon lord her power had created that was even uglier than the original. “At least it’s not going to be sticking around.” She pulled her copy of Mist’s magical blade out of her inventory and unpaused the world long enough to slash through the demon lord’s left wing which left the creature grounded. She brought her blade down and through the creature’s skull and out the side of the very dead demon. “Never mind.”

Her copied demon lord glared at her. “Master.”

“Follow, don’t attack anyone.” Noelle turned and headed back toward the dark elf city where Mist had set up shop. They were hoping that they could figure out a way to purify the demon’s various resistances so that she could create a more durable minion that wasn’t completely tainted. While she wasn’t all that worried about the cold, she knew the rest of the group was looking forward to getting a copy of the demon’s immunity to cold as well as death magic. 

Thankfully the guards didn’t cause her any problems when she brought her demon back to the city. From there it was just a matter of heading to the square in front of Mist’s tower where Mist was talking to a couple of dark elves. She smiled when two of the three dark elves made excuses and hurriedly left rather than hang around a demon lord. “I managed to copy the demon lord.”

Mist nodded. “So I see. Can you get him to summon a demon?”

The demon lord scowled at Mist then glanced at Noelle. 

Noelle said, “Go for it.”

The demon lord summoned three demons that promptly flew at Mist. 

Mist pulled his sword out of his inventory then blurred forward and hacked two of the demons apart in the blink of an eye. “You might want copy the remaining demon.”

Noelle jumped forward and grabbed the flying demon and copied it with her power then ripped the original apart. 

The copied demon looked around then focused on Noelle. “Orders?”

Mist used a touch of magic to clean his blade then put it away in his inventory. He gestured toward the remaining dark elf. “I believe our volunteer here could use some extra power.” He pulled a copy of his generous donation gloves out of his inventory and tossed them to the demon. “Put those on and give the dark elf your powers and magic.”

The copied demon ignored the gloves that hit him then fell to the ground as he shook his head frantically. “No.”

“Do it,” Noelle commanded. She watched as the demon picked the groves up, walked over to the dark elf and transferred its magic to the elf. She frowned slightly as the demon slumped and fell out of the air when he couldn’t generate enough lift.

“All of it,” Noelle commanded the ugly demon. She frowned as the demon looked weaker and weaker until he died and melted into goo. “Okay, that’s disgusting.”

“They’re magical creatures, without their magic, they can’t survive.” Mist scowled down at his goo covered gloves then turned slightly so he could keep an eye on the demon lord.

The demon lord scowled at Mist.

Mist kept one eye on the demon as he asked the dark elf. “How do you feel?”

“Powerful,” the dark elf replied with a grin. 

Mist conjured a ball of fire over his outstretched hand. “Good, don’t get any stupid ideas.”

The dark elf grinned viciously. “Of course not.”

“Do you need anything destroyed by a demon lord?” Noelle asked.

“Not particularly, you might as well order him to give up-” Mist scowled as the demon lord lunged at him. He pulled his blade back out of his inventory then blurred forward and cut the demon’s head off with his magical sword. “Sorry about that.”

The dark elf gulped as he stared at Mist. “Shit!”

Mist used a touch of magic to clean off his blade and gloves then stuck the sword back in his inventory and teleported his gloves to his hand. He looked at the dark elf with a cold smile. “If you want to live, I suggest not being as stupid as the demon lord.” He stuck his gloves in his inventory.

“Of course not my lord,” the dark elf replied fearfully.

Mist felt like shaking his head at the terrified dark elf. Normally he’d wouldn’t have buffed the sociopathic dark elf but cleansing the corruption from the demon’s abilities was probably going to be a long and painful process and he didn’t want to corrupt his own people. “Follow me to the tower, don’t steal anything. I’d like to cleanse the corruption from the demon before it kills you.” He doubted the corruption would actually kill the dark elf but he wanted him to actually put forth effort when he meditated on the golden statue. He looked at Noelle. “Thanks for the help.”

“At least we got a couple of abilities out of that, right?” Noelle asked.

“We should have. We’ll do some testing after he gets stabilized.”

“In that case, I’m going go to see if the girls need help with anything.”

“Sounds good.” Mist turned and headed into his tower so that he could open a door to his warehouse without everyone seeing or getting overly curious.

0o0o0

Aisha stepped out of the shadows behind the chaos and death mage and brought her rag up to his face and covered it. “Does this smell like chloroform?”

Ranma snorted as he walked in after he heard the wizard collapse. “I’m fairly sure he doesn’t know what chloroform is.”

“His bad.” Aisha smirked as she stuck the rag back in her inventory.

Ranma opened a door to the cell under Mist’s tower next to the wizard then walked over and drug him through the door. “Do you want to strip the wizard or his study?”

Aisha pulled a bag with an expansion charm on it out of her inventory. “I’ll grab the books and shinies. You can make sure that he doesn’t have anything on him.”

“Sure.” Ranma stripped the wizard down to his underwear then hit him with a sleeping potion from his inventory so that he’d stay asleep until someone could screw with his mind enough that he’d willingly gave up his magic. He’d feel worse about ambushing the guy but the man liked to raze towns to the ground for his amusement. 

Aisha worked carefully yet quickly as she worked on looting his study. “We should have Harry steal his tower once we’re done looting it.”

Ranma smiled as he walked back through the door and closed it. “Hopefully we can talk the sorcery expert into surrendering once the others are dead, she’s not actually a bad person.”

“At least not for a wizard,” Aisha replied absently as she continued stuffing stuff into her expanded bag. She was just glad that they would be finishing everything in the next couple of days because she didn’t like having to worry about people randomly sticking a knife in her while walking down the street.

0o0o0

Amelia felt slightly guilty about rewiring the wizard’s brain to be a lot more suggestible and compliant so that they could copy the mentally damaged wizard and order him and the copies to give up his sorcery ability. She was slightly annoyed that only another wizard could safely acquire the sorcery ability but at least that meant that Selena, Abby and Mist unlocked the ability to learn all of the sorcery spells in the man’s tower. They’d refused to accept any of the death links though she didn’t really blame them even if some of the spells might have been useful like the spell to summon shadow demons or turn people into werewolves.

After they’d managed to transfer the sorcery ability to the girls and Mist the group had drained the wizard and his clones to death with their siphoning ability. It wasn’t nice but neither was the wizard. Even Albus hadn’t objected to putting the evil wizard down though she was sure that part of that was the lack of a prison that could hold him. She blinked as they found themselves back in the black stone room. “What happened?”

Genie said, “Lily managed to talk the sorcery witch into surrendering which meant that you won.”

Lily winced as she realized that she’d cut things short. “Sorry.”

Mist shrugged. “Don’t apologize, you completed the mission, I’m just glad that Taylor was able to steal one of the Draconian flying ships before we had to leave.” He turned and looked at Riley. “Did we ever upgrade our best dark elf with regeneration?”

Riley snickered. “Three versions ago. We managed to talk a werewolf into giving up his abilities for a cure and a pardon for some of the stuff he did for the death wizard. We even managed to talk a phantom warrior out of petrification immunity to add to the mix as long as he got it back. I’m a little sad that we didn’t manage to get plane shifting or wind walking but such is life.”

Genie shook her head. “Phase shifting would depend on the local jump a bit too much to be useful.”

Mist asked, “How many points did I get and do I get credit for stealing the sorcery and chaos abilities?”

Genie pouted. “2,000 points and sort of.”

“Sort of?” Mist asked warily.

“You don’t get the starting spells but you get the ability and should be able to research stuff with the books you found.”

“I guess that’s fair. 2,000 points, any objection to grabbing five life and nature links?”

”Not particularly. That would be all of your points.”

“That’s fine, it gives me something to work on.” Mist had a feeling that he was going to have to come back and explore more of the world now that he wasn’t worried about losing.

Albus spoke up, “It’s certainly an interesting and dangerous world.”

James asked, “Where are we going next?”

Mist glanced around at his friends. “We can either spend a couple of weeks in Fantastic Beasts setting things up before we jump or we jump somewhere else first then come back and set things up.”

Umy raised her hand. “Are there any jumps that allow food creation on a massive level or weather manipulation?”

“I have an idea for the food and weather creation.” Mist turned to look at Genie. “If I buy the Super Crock Pot from Recettear can I enchant it to create something other than fish?”

Genie laughed. “You shouldn’t have a problem copying the enchantment and enchanting a pot to conjure a specific type of food, it doesn’t have to be seafood.”

“In that case, give me the Super Crock Pot.”

“Done.” Genie snickered as she knew how much Mist disliked most types of seafood.

“And weather manipulation?” Rose asked.

Mist grinned. “The Wheel of Time has weather manipulation that should be able to head off the dust bowl.”

Leet snorted. “You can already make a mad science weather machine, you just want to go to the Wheel of Time.”

“Sort of, the magic users there can also make structures that last thousands of years or at least some of them can.”

Hermione said, “We should probably drop by Fantastic Beasts first and spend a couple of weeks setting things up then jump and spend some more time setting things up before skipping ahead and hitting the Harry Potter jump. That will give us time to look over the Wheel of Time setting and look over maps and such when we’re not running around setting up companies and such things.”

Willow asked, “What if we can’t fix things?”

“Then we send someone back in time with the mirror to fix the problem or we admit that we can’t fix everything and move on.”

Harry still found it strange that there were books about his life or at least a decent portion of it in other worlds. “Genie can you pull up the Wheel of Time jump so that we can look at it? I’d like to have some idea what our options are so that we can figure out the best way to tweak things.”

Genie grinned as she tossed the Wheel of Time jump up. “Have fun, the companion imports aren’t the best.”

It didn’t take the group long to understand that wasn’t the best was understating things. No one with the possible exception of Albus needed survival training or combat training which meant the 300 point warder import was pointless. Selena scowled slightly. “The Aes Sedai background doesn’t really offer enough to offset the fact that it adds a couple of decades of memories dealing with the Tower’s bullshit.”

Genie said, “On the other hand, both you and Abby would get magic.”

Abby shook her head. “I’ll take my chances with finding someone that is willing to give up their magic or using the FF6 mana infuser to get magic. I don’t want decades of memories of dealing with the White Tower.”

Willow asked, “How are you going to deal with the fact that most Aes Sedai are going to assume that you’re an insane male channeler?”

“That’s one of the reasons I wanted to head back to Fantastic Beasts and why I wanted drop in. I was going to use the ticket to swap genders before I left so that I’d get the female source of power.”

Leet asked, “How hard do you think it will be to acquire power?”

Mist shrugged. “If nothing else, I’ll just mix the magic systems and teach everyone that way, all of the perks, none of the problems.”

“If that’s the case, why bother paying points for the magic at all?” Aisha asked

Genie said, “So that it works in other worlds. I mean technically you could cludge things together and make a hybrid system but this short circuits the requirement of finding someone to help fuel the machine and allows you to draw the power in other words.”

Mist frowned slightly. “Wait, so you’re saying that there is very little reason to pay points considering I could just infuse the power then use combined conjures to mix the magic system with something that has a mana pool or use magicite to learn the magic effects?”

“Considering you paid cp for your various techniques to combine and learn powers, I don’t see why not,” Genie admitted somewhat reluctantly.

“In that case, that saves me from having to take flaws or gender swap.”

Tara spoke up, “I don’t know, you’re cute as a girl.”

“I have alt forms for a reason,” Mist replied with amusement.

“I know.” Tara smiled at him.

Mist looked at Genie. “Can I import a pet into the horse?”

Genie shook her head. “Nope, that would make it worth the 50 points the jump wants you to pay for it.”

“Ah well, it was just a thought,” Mist grumbled good naturedly.

Sin snickered. “On that note, let’s head to Fantastic Beasts and work on setting things up then relax in Wheel of Time for a while.”

“Sounds good to me, call when you get bored of Fantastic Beasts.” Genie snapped her fingers and sent the group back to the Beasts jump.

The group spent a few weeks setting up companies all under the main company Mist Solutions, building magitek power generation systems for areas that couldn’t benefit benefit from hydroelectric and quietly bribing various officials to pass legislation protecting the environment while leaving individuals with a robust amount of property rights for their own land. The power systems were warded and disguised as caged wind machines to protect the birds and keep the ministry from finding out that the machines were magic. Thankfully most people just weren’t that interested in how everything worked or knew enough science to realize that the stations were producing far more power than they should be able to.

Mist and Leet completed a series of weather machines over the next couple of weeks and quietly scattered them around the United States to prevent the drought that had helped make the great depression so horrific. They also created a company that worked on introducing better farming methods that weren’t nearly as destructive. 

Riley started a subsidiary of Mist Solutions to spread various cures for some rather horrific diseases and help increase the quality of medical education. The best part was that the people they hired as doctors quickly rose in ability and skill thanks to Mist’s company perk which meant that after a couple of months the new experts could head to various medical schools and revolutionize the entire medical field.

Mist also made sure to bribe various members of congress to pass legislation to prevent the government giving any tax incentives to destructive companies. Pushing that bit of legislative mess through had required a fair amount of work, bribes and outright blackmail in some cases as well as tracking down certain people that had blackmail on various senators but it had squeaked through the House and Senate. He doubted he could have pushed it through later once the large companies really got started with lobbyists with a bathtub filled with blood.

After that, he’d taken a quiet trip down to Cuba and pushed Castro down a flight of stairs as he didn’t want to deal with the future dictator coming to power. He had a feeling someone else would come to power in his place, but that was life. 

He spent a few days casting his new transmute spell on a couple of the coal mines they owned to turn them into diamond mines using his alchemy ability and gold to get enough mana to cast the expensive spell. From there, he created another business to look into ‘creating’ organic wastewater treatment solutions and algae based biofuel.

Leet had fun creating a subsidiary of Mist Solutions that produced cheap diesel cars that would run on biofuel which the sanitation company sold. 

Mist used bribes and blackmail to push through various restrictions on waste products for companies and set up various companies that bought, recycled and cleaned up waste using some tinkertech systems that Leet designed. From there, it was a simple matter to bribe congress into passing various laws that would hopefully avoid the worst environmental damage his own world had suffered. 

0o0o0

Genie snickered as she looked at the group she’d just teleported back to the black stone room. “Having fun?”

Mist snorted. “I think I spent more in bribes than Hermione’s book fund.”

Harry laughed. “I hope not.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I haven’t spent all that much on books lately so it’s possible.”

Selena grinned at Hermione. “Just a couple of first editions.”

“Which were cheap,” Hermione defended herself.

Mist smiled as he walked over to the wall where the Wheel of Time jump was displayed. “If I take dreamer, will it be useful elsewhere?”

“Of course, how useful any given dream world might be or even if you want to enter, will depend on the jump,” Genie replied as she gestured at the document.

“In that case, I’ll chance it...” Mist trailed off as his starting location appeared on his sheet. “Seanchan, great, you’re trying to get me killed.”

Genie snorted. “It’s random, just think of it as having a nice starting location where you can pick up some help and supplies.”

Victoria asked, “This is going to be a problem, isn’t it?”

Mist turned to look at Victoria. “If we didn’t have out of context ways to get around, it might. I’m not planning on being there longer than it takes to hire some local help.” He looked over his choices again to make sure he’d grabbed everything he needed. “What do you think?”

Drop In:

Dreamwalker: [500]

The Dark One's Own Luck: [250]

Items:

Dice: [Free] A beautifully carved set of ivory dice.

Medallion: [200] Any and all threads unravel on touching the user.

Dull Knife: [200] Invisible to shadowspawn.

Drawbacks:

The Dragon's Fang: [100]

In The Name of the Light: [100]

Genie smiled slightly. “Dreams and luck for powers aren’t bad choices, the medallion should help keep you alive and the dull knife means exploring the Blight is a lot easier. I’m a little surprised that you didn’t pick wolfbrother.”

“I happen to like my eyes just like they are,” Mist admitted.

Genie replied with mock shock, “Wow, a jumper giving up power because it changes their eye color. Have you heard of a glamour charm?”

“I didn’t really want to have to listen to the wolves either. Besides, the rest of the flaws aren’t all that easy to deal with that I’d have to take to afford it.”

“Now that I can understand. Do you want to import any of your various buildings this time?”

Mist shook his head. “Not if we’re starting in Seanchan.”

“In that case, I’ll see you in a year unless there are any last minute questions?”

“Am I going to have issues recruiting people from mirror worlds?”

“No more than usual,” Genie replied with amusement.

“Excellent.”

Genie snickered as she sent the group to a Wheel of Time world.

0o0o0

Mist glanced around the busy street that the group found themselves on. “At least no one is screaming.”

“Always good,” Albus admitted.

Abby smiled slightly as she glanced around the city at the people dressed in old fashioned clothes. “Any idea where we should go first?”

“Give me a second and I’ll figure something out.” Hermione reached out with her telepathy and started looking through minds for information about the city and surrounding area. 

“I’m not sure.” Mist reached out with his ESP to try to figure out if there was a Damane kennel in the area. 

Xander frowned slightly as he noticed a man in armor eyeing the group. “We should probably find an inn or something.”

Hermione smiled as she found a young sul’dam at a local bar that wouldn’t ask too many questions as long as they were willing to give her adventure. “I know just the place.” She started walking down the street to the bar.

“Cool.” Harry followed with the rest of the group. He was looking forward to setting up shop in a nice out of the way location and making a couple of surgical strikes before any of the major players realized they needed to be worried about things. 

Mist frowned checked the guard’s head that was looking at them as he followed Hermione. He was just glad that his long sleeves hid his dragon fang tattoo because he didn’t want anyone seeing it until he could either remove it with magic or finish the design and turn it into the full version of the ancient Aes Sedai symbol, sure it would look weird but it would be better than getting caught with a dragon fang on his arm. He whispered taking care not to be caught looking at the guy. “Okay, he’s just wondering why we’re wearing strange clothes and where we’re from. It shouldn’t be a problem as long as we don’t cause problems.” He had a feeling they were going to have to travel around a bit to locate some of the more valuable damane that hadn’t been sent with the invasion fleet like the women that could make a’dams.

Xander muttered, “Good.”

Thankfully it didn’t take all that long to get to the bar where several sul’dam liked hanging out. Mist frowned slightly as they walked into the bar and three women in blue dresses turned to look at them. He took a quick look through their minds to see if they were worth hiring, the first two might be worth hiring the third was rather nasty but had decent magic potential or at least that’s what it felt like. It was a bit hard to judge when her talent was only partially trained. 

Hermione pulled a bag of gold coins out of her bag and walked over to the youngest sul’dam. “I’d like to hire you.”

The red haired girl turned and looked at Hermione. “To do what?”

“I know where an island is that has channelers running around free that need to be captured. It should be an adventure and chance to get rich.”

The girl smiled. “You had me at adventure but you’ll need to purchase a damane and most of the good ones went with the Return.”

The third sul’dam snorted. “You don’t have enough gold.”

Hermione checked the sul’dam’s mind then pulled another bag of gold out and lobbed the bag on the table next to the grumbling sul’dam. “I think that you’ll find I do.”

“In that case, I’d be willing to sign up.”

Hermione glanced at the other sul’dam. “As I said, there will be dozens of girls for us to capture.”

Albus resisted the urge to sigh as he watched Hermione hire what amounted to slavers. ‘Hopefully they have a plan.’

The second sul’dam shrugged. “Prove that you have enough to buy a couple of damane and some soldiers and I’d be interested.”

Hermione had to work to keep from scowling. “Let’s go to the kennels and we’ll see how many girls are for sale.”

Mist had a feeling they were going to unload a decent amount of gold but duplicating bags of gold wasn’t all that hard and he wanted everything ‘above board’ until he could sort through the sul’dams. “Shall I find some soldiers to come with us?”

Hermione glanced at Mist. “Yes.”

Mist turned his attention toward the men that looked like they could fight and started scanning minds looking for people he wouldn’t feel guilty feeding to a meat grinder because that was probably what the Isle of Madmen was. He wanted at least a couple of competent people but as long as they were working for him, they should improve from thugs to competent soldiers. 

“I’ll make sure Hermione doesn’t run into problems.” Beth turned and followed Hermione and the three sul’dam out.

“Sounds good.” Mist looked around the room. “I need some soldiers, you’ll probably die but if you don’t you’ll be paid extremely well and have a chance to earn gold, glory and honor.”

Xander had a feeling that Mist needed to work on his recruitment speech then again, given the number of people that wanted to sign up, maybe not.

Tiffany glanced around. “Where did Aisha go?”

Riley frowned. “No idea.”

Victoria snorted. “She’s probably keeping an eye on Hermione.”

Amy said, “Hopefully she stays out of mischief.”

Amelia grinned slightly. “Or at least doesn’t get caught.”

Taylor focused on the various bugs around the area, listening for problems and keeping an eye on things. “I don’t see her but I wouldn’t expect to.”

Willow said, “I’m going to grab some provisions.”

“I’ll help.” Laura followed Willow out of the bar.

0o0o0

Mist was a little annoyed that they’d only managed to hire five sul’dam but at least they’d managed to hire a decent number of thugs. Buying a decent number of damanes had left a bad taste in Hermione’s mouth but getting them away from the empire was the first step in freeing them. Normally he would have avoided dealing with the Seanchan if he could help it but they were excellent at capturing channelers and he needed a bunch of insane channelers caught. 

The hardest part other than gathering enough supplies was hitting everyone with confusion charms so that they could talk the superstitious group into walking through a door to the Isle of Madman. After that, it was a simple matter of ‘discovering’ the stone structure Ranma had created while everyone was gathering supplies for the trip. It wasn’t much but it should provide some shelter from the rain and wild animals and maybe even unfriendly channelers. From there, they’d sent the guards and thugs out to scout the surrounding area, mostly to give them something to do and to get them familiar with the area.

Hermione frowned as she checked the surrounding area with her telepathy as the rest of the group worked on stashing supplies. She wasn’t all that happy with what she found, the people were more than a bit screwed up in the head. “I think we underestimated the general level of insanity, anyone from beyond the next village is out to get them and even the next village is suspect. There are channelers running around blowing things up because they can. This is going to take some work to sort out.”

Mist sighed. “So much for hoping I was wrong. The first step is probably to check to see if we can find any steddings in the area.”

“Which would screw with the local magic and let us contain any channelers dropped there, right?” Xander asked.

“That’s the idea.” Mist glanced at the group. “Has anyone had a chance to look at the damane or sul’dam’s genetics?”

Amelia said, “I managed to take a quick look earlier. I noticed some genetic similarities which implies a genetic component but I doubt that it’s completely genetic. Either way, we should probably screen the islanders before we send them through a door to an alternate world.”

“It’s going to take years to search the entire 4,000 plus mile island,” James pointed out.

Mist said, “That’s only if we don’t use magic to find the channelers. If we use magic and telepathy, we should be able to get most of them within a couple of weeks. Once we grab the ones that know they can channel, we’ll work on sorting through the rest. Besides, we don’t need to clear the entire island of people, just a valley where we can set up farms and a training camp.”

“You’re still talking about taking over an island the size of Australia,” Lily pointed out.

“Not to mention stealing channelers from alternate versions of the island as well as alternate versions of Emond’s Field if we can. If we can pull this off, we’ll be able to build a nation of magic users.”

Lily smiled at Mist. “At least you’re dreaming big.”

“I try.” Mist looked at Ranma then back at Lily. “Who wants to head off to an alternate White Tower to steal some stuff?”

Ranma glanced over at Aisha. “I already promised Aisha I’d give her a lift to steal from an alternate Stone of Tear.”

Lily said, “I wouldn’t mind helping you loot the Tower.”

Hermione glanced at Umy. “In that case, we’ll work on a plan on how to best search the island in a reasonable amount of time.”

“Good luck with that,” Mist replied as he shifted to his female alt form that looked a lot like Laura. “Ready?”

Lily focused on a world where she wouldn’t mind looting the Tower and opened a door to Tar Valon. “Let’s go.” She walked through her door into an alley. 

Mist followed Lily through the door wondering where Lily had brought them as he could hear the sound of a city in the background. “Doesn’t sound like a dead world.”

Lily let the door close once Mist had stepped through. “You’re right, it doesn’t. I picked a world that I wouldn’t feel guilty looting the Tower down to the bedrock.”

“In other words, expect bad things…” Mist trailed off as he walked out of the alley and saw the remains of what he was guessing was Elaida’s new tower. It looked like the foot of an angry god had stepped on it and then ground it to rubble. “I wasn’t expecting that.” He reached out with his ESP and tried to figure out what had happened. It didn’t take all that long to figure out what had happened, in this world the Tower forces had managed to capture Egwene al’Vere and Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan had ordered her stilled and executed as a show of power. Of course, once word reached Rand that his childhood friend and ex-love interest had been killed, he’d traveled to the city and leveled Elaida’s tower with her in it then sent a message to the remaining Aes Sedai to pick someone more reasonable before he killed every single last one of them.

Sadly that had just caused the Tower to do the stupid thing and dig their heels in which was why they still didn’t have an Amyrlin. If things progressed like the book then the Seanchan were already on their way to attack the Tower or would be soon which would end really badly for the Tower as everyone was completely at each other’s throats. He shivered slightly as he could feel the distrust and hatred coming out of the Tower. “You certainly picked a decent place to loot. The Tower is completely broken and just waiting for a breeze to knock them over.”

“Do you have a plan?” Lily asked as she glanced around the street.

“Sure, we walk in while invisible then head to the storerooms where they keep their ter’angreal and loot it to the ground. After that, we can probably recruit a decent number of blue, green and even yellow Aes Sedai by offering them a better life elsewhere. I want to check on this world’s Verin to see if she’s trustworthy. I also wouldn’t mind grabbing all of the novices and accepted that we can.”

“Sounds like a decent plan.” Lily turned invisible. “Let’s go.”

Mist held ‘his’ hand out then turned invisible after Lily grabbed his hand. “I’m just glad that I have a basement to stick everything in.”

Lily snickered as they headed toward the Tower. 

0o0o0

Looting all of the ter’angreal in the various storerooms took most of a day even with help from Mist’s avatars and minions. Reading minds and recruiting people took several days as there were a lot of people to get through. On the upside, they managed to bag a Forsaken thanks to ESP and a stunner to the back of her head. He’d been heading for the library when the alarm bells sounded for the Tower as the hallway exploded in front of him. “Fuck!”

“Language,” Lily scolded out of reflex.

“I’ll be right back.” Mist pulled his stopwatch out of his pocket and pushed the button freezing everything in place. “Okay, I have twenty two hours before this cuts out.” He walked over to the hole in the wall and looked down at the two figures in the courtyard. He reached out with telekinesis and unlocked the bracelet from the sul’dam’s wrist then pulled an a’dam out of his inventory and duplicated it. 

He flew down and stuck the a’dam on the sul’dam’s neck then looked around the frozen courtyard for his next target. He frowned slightly as he realized that everything was a bit of a chaotic mess. He put an a’dam on another sul’dam and unhooked the wrist cuff and closed it. He flew up to where a wyvern like thing was frozen in mid air, lined up his kick then unpaused things for a second so that he could kick the creature’s head off before he paused time again.

He flew back to the ground, looked at where the Seanchan had a collection of exotic monsters, checked to make sure that there weren’t any sul’dam or damane in the group then unpaused time and double cast two ultimas at the group. He didn’t bother waiting for the spells to completely explode before he paused time again then headed for the next group of sul’dam so that he could put a’dam on them. 

Fifteen minutes later from his point of view and a few seconds from everyone else’s point of view and the Seanchan’s attack force had suffered significant setbacks. He flew back up to where he’d left Lily and unpaused time. “Let’s go, I need a portal open in the courtyard to the stedding.”

“On it.” Lily hurried over to the hole in the wall and opened a door in the courtyard back to the stedding that Hermione had found in the other world. “There.”

Mist gestured and started teleporting the Sul’dam and damane he could see through the door. He paused time when he ran out of targets then flew down to the next group. He unpaused time and worked on teleporting the next bunch through the portal. He turned and tossed another two ultima spells at a group of Seanchan soldiers then turned and headed toward where he could sense the commander of the attacking force so that he could have a discussion with him.

0o0o0

Hermione frowned as Mist walked out of a door in thin air carrying a broken female or at least she was fairly sure the girl was female, it was hard to tell in the bloody rags she was wearing. She’d been tortured and had her hands and knees broken messily and one of her eyes looked burned out while the other was sewn shut. “What the hell happened?”

“That world’s version of Elaida is a sociopathic bitch. I need a biokinetic!” Mist shouted.

Amy rushed over. “Didn’t you heal her?”

“I cast a couple of healing spells, a lot of the damage was intentionally healed this way.” Mist set the other world’s Egwene on the wooden table as the door closed behind him. “See if you can fix it.”

Amy touched the girl’s flesh and started working on fixing the damage that had been done to her. “Please tell me that you killed the fuckers that did this.”

“Hopefully they’re already dead, we’ll seen when she wakes up, if she wakes up.” Mist had been shocked when he’d found her locked up in a ceil under the tower when he was rescuing some other political prisoners. He knew that if Rand had realized what they’d done he would have burned the entire island to molten rock. 

“She’ll wake up,” Amy replied as she continued fixing the girl.

Hermione asked, “What happened?”

Mist took a breath then let it out slowly as he tried to get control of his emotions. “We’d finished looting the ter’angreal storerooms then started recruiting people when the Seanchan attacked. I dealt with the attacking force then pointed out to the novices and accepted that more were coming and that they should flee through the door Lily made. Sure, it’s a bit mean but considering the Seanchan won’t stop until they capture the Tower, they’re better off here than they are there.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to have trouble managing everyone. We currently have a bunch of avatars keeping an eye on things but eventually we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do with the large collection of channelers you dropped off.”

“Eventually. I’m hoping that we can get Egwene sorted out and she can help deal with the Aes Sedai and the rest. Unless I’m horribly mistaken there are darkfriends in the Aes Sedai that we should deal with by soul trapping them so the dark god doesn’t get an update or more of an update than he already has.”

Amy spoke up, “The girl is going to need some calories, can one of you get some soup while I rebuild her tongue?”

Hermione stared at Amy for a second then said, “I’ll go, if I stay, I’m going to start screaming or look through her head to see who to kill and she’s already suffered enough.”

Mist watched Hermione stalk out of the room. “Hopefully Lily doesn’t do anything too drastic.”

“One can hope,” Amy replied absently as she regrew a couple of bones in Egwene’s hands then started working on rebuilding the girl’s tongue.

“I’m going to add some avatars to the people guarding the Aes Sedai.” Mist walked out of the room and worked on creating avatars that could fly, read minds and were reasonably durable to add to the collection of avatars taking care of the large group of Aes Sedai, Sul’dam and damane.